Handling Eye-Strain? 52
mathgenius asks: "Usually I have no problems with this, but I've noticed again, as the stress levels increase I become more susceptible to eye-strain. I've reduced the contrast on my monitor, changed Mozilla to grey background, and enlarged my text. I am considering moving my desk to the window next, so that I am more likely to relax looking at a distance. Do people here have these problems? What have you found to help with eye-strain?"
See an optometrist! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:See an optometrist! (Score:1)
It also helps that I only use LCD monitors now. CRTs are poison for your eyes.
Glare, Light Levels, Contrast See Optometrist (Score:5, Insightful)
It's important to reduce the glare on your monitor. Moving your monitor near the window may actually be increasing the amount of strain that you are experiencing if the amount of glare has been increased. Ideally, you'll want to have the monitor at a 90 deg angle to the window if there is a significant amount of light coming through the window. Almost the worst is facing the window and the screen dead on (if there is too much light coming in the window). Being able to focus on something more than 15 feet away is a good thing though.
Reducing the light level in your work area is also important. Either reduce the overhead lights, turn them off, or pull the shades slightly.
Using more contrast may help. A gray background may actually increase eye strain because there is less contrast. But, your mileage may vary here. Key thing is to use a combination of colors that is easier to see. For example, yellow on gray is a terrible choice. Black on white tends to be among the best for text. Do use a subdued, simple background for your desktop.
Finally, seeing an Optometrist or Opthamologist can help since they can prescribe special computer glasses for you.
Re:Glare, Light Levels, Contrast See Optometrist (Score:1)
For me the best light to work with in the evening is simple candle light. Far more pleasing to the eye than any electrical light I know of. Plus staring at the flame is great to take a break and think about something.
black on white is worst (Score:2)
See how much clearer the text is? Of course increasing the font as well helps a lot.
Few Things (Score:5, Informative)
- Dim the lights in your office if possible... the reflection off a monitor gives me headaches.
- Stretch your neck and shoulders every so often. Eye strain can be associated with upper body tension.
- Get one of those screens that goes in front of the monitor to reduce glare. They also dim the monitor a bit more.
- Make sure you're sitting far enough back. I have a tendancy to sit REALLY close to the monitor. You'll get used to sitting a ways back and it will help a lot.
- Make sure you're getting enough sleep. Sounds silly, but I'm guilty of complaining about eye strain while not getting enough sleep (here I am, up at 4am)
Re:Few Things (Score:1)
Re:Few Things (Score:2)
I second this. I used to get 5-6 hrs sleep per day, until I realized I never really felt OK (same complaints: sore eyes, not feeling fit, constant light headache, etc). I'm not really disciplined and I have difficulty actually going to sleep, so 2 hours before the ideal bedtime I started taking Melatonin [google.com].
It's not one of those sleeping pills, it's to stabilize your day/night rhythm. I used it for a couple of weeks and now I've gotten into a routine which gets me a ful
Go for a walk (Score:2)
Look at the horizon, or at birds, or clouds -- at things far away.
Every day. Daylight on the retina is registered in the pituitary.
Thirty minutes to mental health.
I know you won't, but if you did, you'd feel better in a dozen different ways.
Re:Go for a walk (Score:2)
Look at the horizon, or at birds, or clouds -- at things far away.
See your boss in the distance, gently waving wondering why you're not at work.
Come back and find several boxes neatly packed with the contents of your former office.
Ahh... bliss.
Re:Go for a walk (Score:2)
Remembering to rest your eyes is no joke (Score:2)
Some thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
I strongly suggest a high contrast, bright (digital) LCD panel as your primary screen. Eye strain is often not from bright light, it's from being forced to compensate for low contrast or fuzzy text. I also recommend a second monitor that's a CRT if your first monitor is LCD, or vice versa. This means that your eyes aren't being fed the same type of light all the time.
I also recommend against desk lamps unless you're reading a lot of stuff off paper. Lighting up your whole work area when you're looking at something that's producing (rather than reflecting) light is counter-productive. In fact, glare from light bouncing off the screen can be a major source of problems.
I wear glasses because I'm short sighted. The glasses I've chosen are photochromatics ("peril sensitive", they get dark in bright light). At their clearesst setting they're about a 5% shade and they reduce a lot of glare. If you already need glasses, you may wish to try something similar. They're also great for driving at night as they reduce the glare from oncoming lights.
Re:Some thoughts (Score:2)
lol! I hope you mean near sighted... Otherwise everyone should be wearing glasses!
Re:Some thoughts (Score:2)
Get a LCD screen (Score:2)
Some hints (Score:3, Informative)
If you have any flourescent tubes for lighting in the office, replace them with regular bulbed fixtures.
If you keep the CRT, check your screen frequency and set it as high as it will go - 75Hz is a bare minimum.
Try lowering the resolution, it will make you squint less and will allow you to up the freq some more.
See an optician. You may have a latent eyesight problem that's crept up on you slowly.
Re:Don't go back to incandescent (Score:3, Interesting)
If cost is a factor on buying cheap fluorescents, consider that spending 50% more on that fluorescent bulb really isn't that much considering how long they last - in fact, it's probably even cheaper in the long run si
Fluorescent bulbs (Score:2)
Refresh rate (Score:1)
Re:Refresh rate (Score:2)
I almost pass out if I'm near a monitor that's less than 75Hz.
I can't talk/work with anyone near a PC if it's refresh rate is too low. Looks like a strobe light when I turn my head.
Re:Refresh rate (Score:2)
Avoid GUIs, choose a tranquil "anti-desktop" (Score:3, Informative)
My solution grew over years switching from Window Maker (1998) to 9wm (1999) to larswm [earthlink.net] (2000) to ratpoison [sf.net] (2001) and since then is what a famous freshmeat editorial [freshmeat.net] calls an "anti-desktop".
Here is the Tao:
Nothing then distracts you from the program you work in, as opposed to a typical GUI desktop where diverse window/tool/status bar consume up 50% of screen estate.
Since CLI programs all use the same font in only one size, few colors (which typically can be customized and thus streamlined to a useful minimum), they offer a visual tranquility that is hard if not impossible to achieve through theming in GUIs
I essentially do all my work in a GNU screen [gnu.org] session inside an rxvt, with a couple of open zsh shells plus vim, mutt, elinks, slrn and aumix.
I was dissatisfied with all available choices and designed my own one called pxl 2000 [freshmeat.net]. I use the large 20 pixel size variant which gives me 92 characters per line on a 1024x768 pixel display
Black backgrounds are the most tranquil backgrounds possible (dark blue might be an alternative for some people). Since monitors do not reflect light like paper, but are light sources themselves, using brighter backgrounds is almost the equivalent of looking into a neon lamp your entire day. If you use CRTs, black backgrounds also reduce flicker and radiation.
A major source of visual stress is browsing the web with its flashy and page layouts that change (and thus constantly force your eyes to readjust) with every hop from site to site. Textmode browsers like lynx, w3m, links and elinks streamline the web to one, always consistent page layout (elinks offers the neat feature of switching table rendering off on the fly) in your preferred, fixed-size console font, and allow to concentrate on the real textual information of the web.
Configuring GUI applications to black backgrounds and white text typically creates compatibility problems (i.e. unreadable widgets) because some application programmers didn't think about such a setup. So the best compromise is to configure all GUI widgets to a dark grey background with white menu text. The get color scheme consistenty across Qt and GTK applications plus Mozilla, create a color scheme in the KDE Control Center and click the option "Apply to non-KDE applications".
-F
Re:White on black (Score:2)
Inverting Display under Mac OS X, problem (Score:2)
I do higly recommend a modern font system on an LCD for reducing eyestrain. Those of you stuck with Windows, I would highly recomend changing the default theme; I find it tiring on the eyes.
Use green on black, not white (Score:2)
Green text on black background is the most tranquil combination. White is just too bright.
> Use a dark grey, non-flashy color scheme for the legacy GUI applications you still need
GUI applications usually assume black on white for everything, so you might have better luck with using a medium background, like the title bar color in Windows' "Rainy Day" scheme, and keeping the text black.
Reduce contrast?!? (Score:2)
See your optometrist. He set me up with glasses specifically for working on a computer screen, at that distance and size. Works great for me.
Re:Reduce contrast?!? (Score:2)
Re:Reduce contrast?!? (Score:2)
There is an optimal contrast/brightness setting, there are objective standards for this setting combination. Reducing contrast will reduce legibility. If you're seeing glare, you either need to clean your eyeglasses, or consult an opthamologist to see if you have problems with your eyes.
Re:Reduce contrast?!? (Score:2)
Eye strain (Score:2)
refresh rates, large displays, low resolutions (Score:1)
Eg on a 19" display I usually use 1024x768 or 1152x864. On a 21" display 1280x1024.
If you can afford an ultra-modern LCD with an extremely high contrast ratio it's definetly worth it, but make sure you get a decent refresh rate out of it, anything less than 85hz is still nasty. I run my CRTs at 100Hz+ (120Hz on the one that supports it).
Re:refresh rates, large displays, low resolutions (Score:2)
Re:refresh rates, large displays, low resolutions (Score:1)
Seriously not being cute but: (Score:1)
Sometimes it is also helpful to give yourself some "away time" from your "baby" and look out a window helps too.
Eye drops? (Score:5, Interesting)
People generally blink less staring at a monitor - meaning their eyes can get dry and sore.
My eyes feel less sore/tired after 9 hours in front of a monitor, and they dont look blood-shot. I put the eye drop applicator next to my monitor - otherwise I forget to use it.
If you do use eye drops - check the applicator for a note about using within ~30 days of opening.
Also ensure that your monitor's refresh rate is high - 85Hz is good for me. You might also want to try an LCD monitor - this works for some people.
yeah (Score:1)
Workrave (Score:1)
www.workrave.org [workrave.org] is a free (Linux/Windows) program that I really like. It has you take regular "micro" breaks and even has images showing simple exercises to perform every hour or so.
Workrave along with an LCD monitor at work has helped me tons.
EP
....AND get more sleep (Score:2)
Your eyes will be much more susceptible to eyestrain, feeling dry, etc. etc. if you are running short on sleep.
Sometime, yeah, you have to get through high-stress times, but too many people sacrifice sleep before anything else. This is a POOR choice. If you've slep
eyestrain... (Score:3, Interesting)
This means you're probably straining to focus on a screen that's not naturally in focus.
I would think you need reading glasses.
Here's a good link with a very good explanation:
http://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/faqs.htm [allaboutvision.com]
Monitor Settings (Score:1)
Setting the Brightness and Contrast of the CRT monitor Accurately [aim-dtp.net]
I've never had your problems exactly, but using this method just always makes things feel better.
Use TFT monitors (Score:2)
My ideal monitor, for which I should start saving, is a 17" samsung at 1600x1200, because I use the 800x600 resolution, which will look bad on 1024x768 or 1280x1024 monitors. Critical also are the refresh rates(should be 20ms or less or something), and contrast (400
Factors causing eye strain (Score:2)
First, get yourself a thorough check by a reputable optometrist. And I don't mean a "15 minutes and we throw in the glasses for free" franchise.
I get eye strain from a condition in which my eyes are not horizontally aligned, so focusing on a point involves one eye pulling in and downwards -- and you eye muscles aren't made to do that for an extended period. Conditions like this are not detected by slap-dash consultations.
Here are a couple of other important factors:
Thanks (Score:1)
I tried mailing you (Score:1)
Sharp Stick (Score:1)